made a suggestion. >> while i did -- >> you're turning red. >> no, no, forred reco the reco find it very fetching. i did not take it. do you have any other suspects? >> don't try to throw me off the scent. don't try to throw me off you, anderson. i told you, geragos and toobin. toobin is too much of a straight guy to wear a pair of handcuff necklaces. he would never think to steal, like you. what about geragos? out of the three of you, i would say geragos would be the type to steal the necklace. >> i knew you were going to accuse -- >> daring. i mean, look at his face. >> where does one get a handcuff -- >> if that doesn't scream guilt. >> where do you get a handcuff necklace, a regular jewelry store or an s&m dungeon. >> a what? what is that? what is an s&m dungeon? >> what will you do if you find the perpetrator of this haine ous crime? >> if i find the thief, they

will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. and i plan to personally put these on him. >> i got to ask this question. what has more sentimental value, your handcuff necklace or your barrette. >> the barrette is lucy's, my daughter's. i have to go with the barrette. don't ask me anything else about what i wear. next thing i know, i'll turn around and lucy's barrette will be gone, anderson. anderson cooper. >> we're going to stay on it, nancy grace, thank you. good luck to you. >> anderson, thank you, friend. >> thank you, friend. let me just say on the record, that i promise cnn and ac 360 will devote all of its many resources to the search and i personally, i will stay on this story until the handcuffs are returned to their rightful owner or until tomorrow's ridiculist. >> she said these are real, i

don't think she was talking about the handcuffs. we should tell you, mark geragos will be on ac 360 tonight to respond to nancy grace's accusati accusations. yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is cnn. now to the lead with jake tapper. if there is a group of workers you don't want disgruntled, it may be the ones responsible for landing your plane. i'm jake tapper. and this is "the lead." the national lead, the forced spending cuts come down hard on air traffic control towers from coast to coast. 149 of them in all. how will this affect your travel and your safety in the skies? president obama plays couples therapist between world powers, nudging israel to pick up the phone and say, sorry, for an international incident. also in national news, last march was the warmest on record. we didn't know how good we had

it. another nor'easter on the way as winter overstays its welcome. >> good afternoon. we're following news that broke just a short time ago that could seriously affect everything from travel to disaster readiness. the federal aviation administration announced its closing 149 regional airport control towers due to those forced spending cuts that went into effect at the beginning of the month, the so-called sequester. florida, texas and california are the states with most closures. they could have a major impact on you. the tower at the ramona airport in san diego county, california, is on the list. ramona serves as a fire fighting air base. the place where plane tankers like the one shown in this file video can fuel up to fight wildfires ravaging southern california. administrators say there is no other airport in the area equipped to handle the job. also on the list, a tower that opened less than a year ago in frederick, maryland, using $5

million of federal stimulus money. frederick is one of those small airports that in many ways isn't small at all. it handles 130,000 takeoffs and landings every year. joining us now from two separate coasts are two officials who are very concerned about the pair of airports we just mentioned. randy mcclemen, mayor of frederick, maryland, and diana jacob, san diego county supervisor on the phone as i mentioned. mayor mcclemen, thank you for joining us. first of all, a little bit odd your airport was built, thanks to 2 09 stimulus funds and now it is closing, thanks to the central government as well. this must be unusual for the citizens of frederick. >> yeah, it is. we're quite elated the fact we had the air funds and got the tower built, and then like you said, just over a year late, we're fighting to keep it open. >> just to stay with you. there are a lot of americans who think washington does need to cut spending and obviously this

will mean some pain. you're in frederick, maryland. there is bwi airport nearby. there is dulles airport. not tremendously far. there is reagan national airport. why does there need to be an airport in frederick, maryland? >> well, one of the reasons that we have an airport is for economic growth. we have a number of corporate entities that fly into our airport and then head down to d.c. the tower provided an extra level of safety to allow those corporate jets to come in. without the tower, we're going to probably start seeing a decrease in that jet activity and that's how our airport makes revenue, the sale of fuel. >> diana, your airport is key to the aerial fire fighting aircraft that protect 1.7 million acres of land susceptible to fire. without the control tower, can this fire fighting continue? >> well, the firefighters will stay, but the problem is you got an airport, an airport that in 1995 there was a midair

collision between two u.s. forest service planes that killed three people. that was the motivation by building the tower, and getting the tower staffed by the faa. this is a foolish move by the faa and the federal government. and it is a great example of how the feds can't get the budget act together. this is a public safety issue. this puts at risk the citizens, over 3 million people in the region, that depend on the ramona airport for their safety in the event of a wildfire or any other kind of disaster. we have had some big ones. 2003, 2007. what the feds are doing, because they cannot put -- are not able to put public safety first and protect the people by closing these airport towers is a disaster in the making. >> mayor, the faa said that they will work with local governments to mitigate the impact.

have you heard from the faa and how concerned are you about the effects to the citizens of your town? >> i haven't heard directly from the faa yet. we sent out letters to our congressional representatives and the faa and said, look, we understand there is a budget crisis here and we're look. we understand that there is a budget crisis here. we're willing to work with them. need to cut back on the hours to provide safety, safe air travel here in our area. another concern that affects the area, all the towered airports with the exception of b.w.i. are going to be closing. that will put an extra burden on the tower people in bwi. we are the second largest municipality in the state of maryland and the second largest general aviation airport in the state of maryland behind bwi so the amount of extra pressure being put on that airport without the general aviation airports like frederick is a

concern to us. >> all right. thanks so much for joining us. those are just two of the affected airports. there are 147 others throughout the country that also have to power down. starting ape 7. tom foreman is standing by to explain the impact it might have on you. >> you know, jake, they are absolutely right when they say it is a safety matter. there are really communities all over this country that have small airports like that and all day long they handle thousands of planes that come in and out. they track their movements as they come in. they keep tra of what is going on on the runway. there are vehicles on the runway, other planes cleared. all sorts of things going on here. if you take the air towers away, if the airport is still there, is this plane flying blind? no. it is not. because exactly what the mayor was alluding to. othe airports will then be in charge of tracking or communicating with this plane in most cases.

there are redundancies to keep track of the plane. it isn't like the planes will be drifting all over the country with no one watching them. there will be people watching them but the mayor is correct it puts more weight, more burden upon the other facilities to pick up that extra load. tom foreman in the virtual room. spring is here but you may have to take the calendar's word for it. this weekend forecasters showing more snow for the nation's mid section possibly building to a nor'easter by monday. probably like you i am more than ready to banish our family snow shovels to the basement, but nature just does not cooperate. >> march came in like a lion. >> the snow is still piled high as tall as i am. >> 12 to 18 inches of snowfall. don't forget to add in gusty winds. >> but it will not stop roaring. >> seriously, snowy. >> just when spring should have brought relief came more than a foot of snow in parts of the northeast and hail like a meteor

shower in texas. climate change may not be to blame says cnn meteorologist chad meyers. >> it is a simple matter of jet stream. last year the jet came from texas all the way up into montreal. that allowed very hot air into the east with temperatures in the 80s. this year it's the opposite. temperatures are in the 30s. literally some spots across the east coast oo degrees colder today than the same day last year. >> reporter: what about the rest of the terrible weather in recent months beginning with superstorm sandy and blizzard after blizzard? for some politicians the frequent cold snaps are proof that climate change is a mess. >> just last week a hearing on capitol hill on global warming was canceled because of snow in washington, d.c. you can't make this stuff up. >> scientists say that misses the point. climate change is not just about ever climbing temperatures, they say. it's about an overall disruption in weather patterns. the director of the national weather service recently told

"usa today" we better get used to it. >> with the rising sea levels we're really worried about perhaps being a new norm with the impact of these types of events. >> there is no shadow to see. an early spring! >> spring was supposed to come early according to phil. >> phil is always accurate. >> reporter: now in ohio a prosecutor jokes he is indicting the groundhog for getting our hopes up. >> i woke up this morning and the wind was blowing. the snow was flying. and the temperatures were falling. and i said, punxsutawney, you let us down. >> where is bill murray when you need him? the national weather service predicts above normal temperatures for spring when it finally does decide to join us. then you can look forward to one of the worst allergy seasons ever according to experts. coming up president obama meets with the king of jordan. he showed up a little late. >> good to see you this morning. >> well, you know, i apologize

for the delay. we ended up having a dust storm. >> so we couldn't helo. >> those dreaded storms. on the last day of the president's mid east tour there has been figurative as well as literal dust kicked up. that's our world lead, next. plus, barack obama's predecessor is out of the spotlight but george w. bush is still making headlines for his new hobby and his brother jeb is impressed. >> i'll just admit this was a surprise to me when i found this out about a year ago. and he's doing it with a vengeance. a guide to good dipping.

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>> i think what your question may be suggesting is why haven't we simply gone in militarily? you know, i think it's fair to say that the united states often finds itself in a situation where if it goes in militarily it is criticized and if it doesn't then people say why aren't you doing something militarily? and, you know, my response at this stage is to make sure that what we do contributes to bringing an end to the bloodshed as quickly as possible. >> the president promised it's just a question of time before assad goes. jessica yellin is live from amman, jordan where that press conference just wrapped. jessica, the president said assad would go but sounded perhaps a little annoyed about being asked how that might happen. why was he seemingly annoyed?

>> well, jake, we counted and this is the sixth time that the president or a member of his administration has said assad must go just in the last month alone. but none of them has laid out a plan or a path for direct action by the united states to help remove assad from power. without any direct military intervention by the u.s. the president knows he is vulnerable to criticism. that he is standing by while a massacre is taking place and that is a particularly sharp and poignant charge when he is standing here in jordan where they are providing refuge to some 7,000 syrians who are fleeing for safety every day. some 7,000 people crossing the border into jordan from syria each day because of the violence there. >> i believe the king abdullah of jordan said that the settlements of refugees now form something like the fifth largest town in jordan.

the big news also today of course, jessica, israel's prime minister netanyahu apologized to turkey. tell us about this and why the white house is making such a big deal out of it. >> well, it's very important news strategically. it's also if i can light for a moment shocking news that prime minister netanyahu apologized at all. i mean, this is a proud, proud man. there is simply on the face of it a diplomatic coup that the president got netanyahu to reverse course. israel and turkey have been in a standoff. they are former allies and have been dead locked for the last three years since israeli soldiers fired on turkish activists headed to the gaza strip to deliver supplies. nine activists died. they froze relations between the two countries and this has stood in the way of all sorts of strategic alliances and efforts to build middle east peace, even potentially some arrangements to

avert a nuclear iran. so thawing those relations could open all sorts of channels for improved military efforts in this area and is very important to the u.s. and israel. also to turkey. so a feather in the president's cap, jake. >> all right. jessica yellin, safe travels on your way back to the white house. >> thanks. >> it's the story of the charismatic politician. the heiress and the envelopes stuffed with cash. it sounds like a fun caper. elmore leonard maybe or carl hyasin but this political drama is real. and it's in french. former french president nicolas sarkozy is under formal investigation accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions from 90-year-old l' oreal cosmetics heiress. some say he took advantage of her and accepted money to fund his 2007 campaign. sarkozy says it never happened. there are more people on

this planet with cell phones than those with access to clean toilets. that's just one of the reasons why this day is set aside every year to get people talking about the planet's water crisis. world water day started 20 years ago but picked up steam in recent months thanks to a sattirical campaign launched by actor matt damon. >> until everybody has access to clean water and sanitation i will not go to the bathroom. yes. >> what? >> damon's strike with me campaign uses humor and occasionally a few celebrity friends to raise awareness about the world's water problems. you can find out more about damon's cause at strike with me.org. one footnote to yesterday's program. georgetown university's christine fair a guest participating in our report about u.s. drone strikes said the u.s. was flying drones launched from pakistan territory and was even building a new

drone base there. well, the pakistani government was apparently watching and officials there strongly dispute that assertion. they wrote us saying, quote, no drones are being launched from pakistani territory and no cia drone base is being constructed in pakistan and of course we thank them for watching. the sports lead. eight presidents, 45 nobel prize winners and one cinderella. brackets were busting across the country last night after harvard university pulled off their first ncaa tournament victory over number 3 seed new mexico. a team many people had in the final four. including me. 2010 harvard alum jeremy lind went bonkers on twitter post in a selfie in his three-point goggles. i, too, fell victim to harvard smackdown of new mexico. president obama picked new mexico too so we are in notable company. i had new mexico going to the final four. that of course is not going to

happen. but the real question is how am i faring against my cnn co-workers? the answer, i'm in the middle. at least i'm beating john berman by a lot. john berman who of course went to harvard. you can check how my bracket is faring against my fellow cnn anchors at cnn.com/brackets. yankee fans won't be seeing the injured alex rodriguez for a while. many are happy about that and major league baseball may be trying to keep him off the field for even longer. there are reports today that the league will file a lawsuit against people linked to the south florida clinic at the center of the latest steroid scandal. the biogenesis clinic has been called the east coast balco. former mvps alex rodriguez and ryan braun have been tied to it going after the clinic in court may be the only way for prosecutors to build a case for suspending the players without an actual positive drug test. as our first week comes to a close we want to hear from you. how's my driving? let us know what you like, what you would change about the lead,

e-mail us at the lead@cnn.com. coming up in our money lead, selling pot is not just a side business for entrepreneurial high school students. it's now a booming industry for cash hungry investors. you'll never believe how much money we're talking about.

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it's time for our buried lead a story we think should be getting more attention than it is right now. los angeles mayor antonio villaraigosa has been in the national spotlight for years but may never have been more under fire than last september when he chaired the democratic national convention and was tapped by the

president to fix a political firestorm. republicans were belittling the democratic pty platform for not including a mention of god or for not stating that jerusalem is the capital of israel. >> by them having pulled it out of their platform that the party that barack obama is leading is increasingly out of touch with the average american. >> i recently sat down with the l.a. mayor for an exit interview. he leaves office this summer. he gave me exclusive behind the scenes details starting with a very unhappy white house. >> i got a call, said that the president was absolutely livid. the president wanted it back in immediately. my response to that was, great. but we ought to whip it. we ought to go to every single delegation and make sure the people know what we're doing. folks didn't want to do that. >> they didn't want to what? >> whip it. i used to be speaker of the california state assembly.

i know how to do these things. so i had to go up there and do what i did. >> what he did was lead an awkward set of voice votes to try to amend the platform. it took three tries and many present thought there was no way two-thirds of the delegates were in favor of his motion. >> the opinion of the chair two-thirds have voted in the affirmative. the motion is adopted i banged the gavel for god and jerusalem and i'm proud that i did. >> term limits are pushing villaraigosa out as mayor of los angeles. some of his supporters were hoping the loyal obama backer would be rewarded with a position in the administration. st so far, nada. >> we talked early on but what i've said is i want to finish my job. i only have a few weeks left as you said. i think a hundred and some odd days. and i've got a lot of work to do. >> but if he called you? >> once again -- >> hey, tony. >> when they call, when the president calls, you take the call. >> the grandson of a mexican

immigrant villaraigosa has put himself in the middle of the debate over the hot issue of immigration reform. >> no human being is illegal. no human being should be illegal. this is one of the areas of real debate whether or not the 11 million who are here illegally should be given a pathway to citizen ship or if they should just be given a pathway to some sort of legal status. >> we ought to give them a pathway. i don't think anything calling itself comprehensive immigration reform will pass if it doesn't provide a pathway to citizenship. it should be earned. no question about it. >> you live in a media empire in california. and your personal life has been the subject of much coverage. there is a picture of you and charlie sheen. does that make it difficult to do your job? >> i'm mayor of l.a. l.a. is hollywood. and, you know, celebrity is something that kind of is part of the l.a. culture.

it is what it is. does it make it more difficult? i am single after all. from time to time. but look, i love my job. i'm not complaining. it's been a good run to the city i love i couldn't be prouder to have been mayor and to have been given this opportunity. >> while the mayor was coy about a future in washington, after his term expires in june, he has not been shy about a possible run for governor of california in 2014. landscapes, dogs, and the classic fruit in a bowl are all among a list of newly released paintings created by former president george w. bush. the paintings were taken from the bush family's hacked e-mail account. since they came from a hacker, cnn has decided not to show them, but we did get our hands on this work of art courtesy of the office of the former president, a painting of the former family dog barney. may he rest in peace. as it turns out barney is not the only four-legged news for the former president.

here's what jeb bush recently told me about his older brother's penchant for painting. >> what's up with those paintings? has he done any of you? >> i haven't -- we have two cats michael and angelo. he really loves to paint dogs so i'm -- but he's gotten better. he is actually pretty good at it. >> the barney painting is great. >> he is like the most focused, disciplined guy to imagine being a former president and not having an opinion on anything over the last four years, really? i mean, to have that discipline, to be respectful of the president that hasn't been as respectful of him as he should have been? man. i could have never done that. or to, you know, everything he sets his mind to he does -- he wants to be good at. and he's actually become a pretty good painter. >> he is good. >> i'll just admit this was a surprise to me when i found this out about a year ago and he's doing it with a vengeance. so if you've got a dog i'm sure

based on your past relationship he would love to paint him. >> he was being sarcastic there just to point that out. just how much does the former president like painting dogs? his art teacher recently told an atlanta tv station he's painted more than 50 since he took up the hobby. hash tag you're it. harvard's ncaa upset brings to mind the old tom lehrer song "fight for your sweet harvard" sample lyrics come on, chaps. fight for harvard's glorious name. won't it be peachy if we win the game? the new ncaa cinderella team's actually cheer is, go crimson. but i know the twitter verse can come up with better. tweet your ideas to at the lead cnn using the hash tag harvard cheer. shoulda, woulda, coulda there is always a lot of that after a candidate loses a bid for office but we're learning today about a secret plan that could have maybe put newt gingrich and rick santorum in the white house. a republican dream team? we'll ask these political insiders about it including the

reporter who broke the story of the deal and one of the would be deal makers in our politics lead.

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today. liberty mutual insurance -- responsibility. what's your policy? welcome back to "the lead." i'm jake tapper. the money lead, pot becoming a booming cash crop. how far we've come from burnouts like cheech and chong as marijuana becomes legal under state laws. wall street now wants in. also in money according to online advertisers i spend a lot of my time cooking and at bed, bath, & beyond. despite all the data mining they're doing why can't they figure out the real me or you? and the pop lead. are you east coast or west coast? this isn't a rap battle but the latest in the late night wars and the tug of war over "the tonight show." in the money lead over the past 40 years or so hollywood has painted a pretty consistent picture of marijuana

enthusiasts. >> hey, man. am i driving okay? >> i think we're parked, man. >> you ever seen a woman on weed? >> all i need is some tasty waves, cool buzz, and i'm fine. >> despite what we've seen in the movies the cannibas culture has evolved. there are now as many yuppies as hippies signing up for a peefs the pot pie. the latest issue of "fortune" magazine takes a look at the big business of marijuana including a network that links weed related start-ups with investors. i'm joined now by lee gallagher the assistant managing editor of "fortune." thanks for joining us. let's start with the numbers. just how much money is being made legally in the u.s. off the marijuana industry? >> well, right now estimates put total sales of cannibas as the

industry calls it at about $1.5 billion annually. projections say that could go up to $3 billion by 2014. that doesn't include the sort of micro economy or cottage industry of accessories that is really exploding. what you're seeing is tons of entrepreneurs, investors really thinking that this industry and everything around it could really be the next big growth industry. you have people that really aren't in this for any benefit other than just the financial which is different from i think what we've seen in the past. so it's really fascinating. >> lee, medical marijuana. that's been legal in 18 states but it seems as though the tipping point is this legalization of marijuana in colorado and washington last year. why was that a game changer? >> that's true. that was a breakthrough of an entirely different order. even though it was just two states, what happened there was they basically, two ballot initiatives basically made it legal for use of any kind, medical or whatever, and it also

required that states would regulate and license businesses, commercial businesses to be able to sell it and to really regulate it. so basically taxed and regulated the industry. this is much more different than even what is the case in places like amsterdam where everybody thinks it's sort of, you everywhere. this is even more expansive than that. this is two states but people that are believers in the industry really think that this opens the pathway for legalization, you know, in many more states down the road and the opening of a huge industry. >> lee, your article also mentions this network that links up marijuana startups with investors but you write that this is not just a bunch of pot heads sitting around sharing ideas. who are these people? >> no. that's what's most interesting. that's what shows you that this is really an industry that people have high hopes on. this is a -- this company basically brings entrepreneurs into a room with potential investors and lets them kind of give their elevator pitch and the entrepreneurs can meet with

the investors and do deals of whatever kind they want. the kinds of investors coming to these meetings are basically, you know, people that there's a retired navy pilot who has no interest in marijuana, has never smoked in his life and is just interested in a way to make money. you have heirs to the priskar fortune. you have people from all kinds -- on the entrepreneur side you have, you know, just like you would see in silicon valley, entrepreneurs who just have innovative new technologies that they think will be the next big thing. in fact, one of the investors sold a startup to a big high tech company in the valley and he is now looking for a place to put that money. it is almost what you would see in any new industry in terms of the flurry of activity. it's not just the spicolis. >> too bad. i liked jeff spicoli. thanks so much for joining us. apple lovers now, the second longest split second of your life when you drop your iphone and all you can do is pray to

steve jobs that it won't land face down. sometime soon that might be a problem of the past. the apple insider has discovered the company has filed a patent for a device that can detect when your phone is in freefall. it will then shift the center of mass so the phone will land on its engine stead of its screen. that's the hope anyway. what's more annoying than harvard totally destroying your ncaa bracket? well, for me at least online ads. they beg you to refinance your that y heod n noticed.belly fat but thosea companies tt push those ads your way?they pr you. the group enliken put out a survey to give consumers a real sense of how data mining companies view them and respondents found that up to half of what they know is wrong. now i now know the pain personally. earlier i spoke with the cofounder of enliken and he explained just how these companies can be so off base.

>> so, mark, i filled out your survey and here is everything they got wrong about me. they say i am a college student. a community activist. a family chef. a home decor shopper, which my wife would definitely disagree with having gotten rid of my last bit of home decor the james bond poster that i had framed from my 20s. and a trendy homemaker. that's kwwhat they say about me. how can they get it so wrong? >> it turns out that they are gathering this data and sort of round about ways and they're inferring a lot of things that they're selling to advertisers about you. for example, you might read a news article about home decor. you might read an article about a new convertible. and either of those things would say to somebody trying to sell data to an advertiser that you're in market for either of those goods. so because they have such a hard time gathering information about you, they end up sort of inferring a lot of things pretty loosely. >> how big of an industry is

data mining? we hear so much about it. is it burgeoning? where are we in the development of this industry? >> well, digitally it's growing like crazy. offline it's been a huge industry for a long time. i mean, axiom and equifax and those guys have been dealing in personal data for a long time. >> how? they do it with tickets and receipts and things on your credit card bill in. >> when you subscribe to magazines and, you know, anything you sort of, in the real world when you give somebody your identifiable information a lot of times that's re-sold. >> how concerned should the average consumer be about privacy? is it just like one flick of the switch and they can find this customer number 734 who they know likes bed, bath, & beyond and turtle wax, they just flip a switch and find out that it's me, or is it much more complicated than that? >> i think there are a couple questions you have to ask. the first is what is privacy. a lot of people online today confuse anonymity with control.

when people say privacy a lot of times they mean they want control over all of the information which is being used to target them with ads. they want visibility and they want transparency. they don't mean that they want to be totally anonymous. in fact, when you look at social media and you look at a lot of the mobile tools people are using they're broadcasting lots and lots of information about themselves. the only difference is they have total control over it. >> see the thing is i probably wouldn't mind them knowing some things about me that are accurate. >> exactly. >> i wouldn't mind them knowing where i went to college and the sports teams i like. maybe i would be offered, you know, shirts and hats for my kids. >> right. >> but instead, what they got about me was completely off. >> right. >> i'm not a college student. i am not into home decor. i mean, is there any way for me to fix it? >> one of the things we're trying to do as enliken is help businesses engage directly with customers for their data. so we think if a business goes directly to a customer and asks them can you please tell me the things you're in the market for, the brands that you have affinity towards, they're going

to get much more high quality data and it will be a much more authentic conversation between the brand and the customer. >> all right. thank you so much for joining us. >> thanks for having me. bill clinton is always there to help out his fellow democrats and this time it's two women running for the same seat. who is the former president calling? our political lead is next. today is gonna be an important day for us. you ready? we wanna be our brother's keeper. what's number two we wanna do? bring it up to 90 decatherms. how bout ya, joe? let's go ahead and bring it online. attention on site, attention on site. now starting unit nine. some of the world's cleanest gas turbines are now powering some of america's biggest cities. siemens. answers.

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now to our politics lead. the so-called dream team that never happened. i know a lot of people who make their living predicting political outcomes but in the republican primaries last year i do not recall anyone seeing this

coming. a unity ticket between two unlikely presidential hopefuls and it almost rocked the race to the white house. erin mcpike, hindsight is 20/20 but would this have really made a dent in the way the primaries went down last year? >> if you think about the general election which is what they're talking about, you know, democrats just devoted all of their time to researching and preparing for a mitt romney candidacy so it would have slowed them down. but for some voters out there this just might have been a dream that was too good to be true. >> that i will faithfully execute -- >> what if president obama had faced him and him in last year's election? who would be living here? during the republican primary, rick santorum and newt gingrich just couldn't see eye to eye and they trained their sights on each other. >> at times you just sort of, you know, that worrisome moment that something is going to pop and we can't afford that in a

nominee. >> i think long before rick came to congress i was busy being a rebel. those are just historic facts even if they're inconvenient for rick's campaign. >> reporter: but soon they stopped snipping at each other and started sniping at romney. before long, both men had dealt serious blows to the front-runner. santorum with the surprise squeaker in iowa followed by a gingrich win in south carolina. suddenly, mitt romney was on the ropes. a gingrich adviser went to the santorum camp. would the senator join the speaker on one ticket? no. santorum was surging and wanted his own shot but they still became strange bed fellows. >> i agree with rick's point. i would urge the states then to return most of the power back to the local communities. and the third thing we bought, which rick alluded to which is really important. >> as newt said the real fundamental issue here is government coercion. >> reporter: then the tables turned.

santorum's top aide went to gingrich's henchmen with a proposal. join their team to topple the tycoon. santorum and gingrich started conspiring by phone. they even huddled in person. but they couldn't resolve the biggest issue of all. who would lead the ticket? and for the two big egos vying for their piece of history, the rest is, well, history. but wait, wait. there is more. some gingrich advisers today are taking issue with the back story the way the santorum campaign is talking about it. adviser kevin kellums gave cnn this statement. the idea a week later it was speaker gingrich who wouldn't consider creative options to stop governor romney doesn't square with history in the same manner that victory has a thousand fathers defeat has legions of weak memories. and, jake, i talked to another gingrich adviser today who said that one of the meetings between gingrich and santorum was, quote, awkward. >> i could imagine it being awkward. i thank you very much, erin mcpike.

we'll bring in our political panel which has big players here to talk about this. the dream team that never was. former adviser to rick santorum, john brayvender joins us also former advisorier to hillary clinton's campaign kiki mccain and the guy who broke the story and got a thousand tongues wagging about it josh green senior national correspondent for "bloomberg business week." john, i start with you because you were the one negotiating here. so what happened? how close was this to becoming a reality? >> i feel like i'm somebody who just came from an auto accident or something listening to everybody else who wasn't there describe it and i was. >> describe the auto accident. >> well, interesting enough, what really happened is that at some point it became clear that it was going to be mitt romney versus an alternate and the alternate was going to be a conservative. and, really, this thing started a little bit before michigan when rick santorum on one night won missouri, colorado, minnesota, went to the head of the national polls, and it really in all the polls for

santorum versus romney. i've known a lot of these gingrich people for years. they're friends of mine. we started to have a discussion of what if we could get a unified, conservative ticket? and the ticket wasn't necessarily santorum and gingrich. it was santorum and getting everybody from michele bachmann and perry and gingrich and even sarah palin to start coalescing behind rick santorum and starting to campaign with him. and then the gingrich people said very clearly, look, newt still has hopes of winning either alabama and mississippi. they're desperate states for him. he has to win them. santorum won both those states as you probably remember. >> yes i do. >> and the discussions intensified where there was some very serious talk about newt getting out, supporting rick santorum, and doing this sort of conservative unit campaign. in the end, you know, i got called and said that newt thought it over and decided that he wanted to concentrate on the states he thought he could win and let rick concentrate on the

states he thought he could win. specifically i asked what states that would be that newt could still win and they said wisconsin, which, you know, but in fairness to newt, when you're in a presidential race you have to get up every day and every morning and tell yourself things are going to change and i'm going to win. and it didn't work out but that is sort of the story as it really happened. >> josh, mathematically, did you ever try to figure out that if they did unite, whether or not they would have been able to -- that is the really fascinating angle. nate silver of the "new york times" fame statistician and other things in march did do a look ahead and said in fact if did you remove candidates romney performed worst. he didn't quite have santorum winning. but to me the key was this was all happening or at least the initial talks as i understood were happening in the weeks leading up to the pivotal michigan primary where it looked for a moment like mitt romney was going to lose his home state. had he lost it all bets would have been off and it isn't clear who would have emerged as the

nominee. >> too bad the math wasn't done. that is interesting. kiki, there was talk, you are former adviser to hillary clinton. >> yes. >> there was talk of the need for the same thing in 2008 for obama and hillary to unite. there is always an attractive quality to this sort of thing. it's a little different of course. >> yeah. look, there -- >> why is it so tough? >> ultimately never say never is the art of politics because truly anything is possible. but the concept in primaries, there's always sort of this high wire act. if we go negotiate, we will dramatically change the course. and it really doesn't happen very often. and so you find out about these sort of high wire moments when someone tried to do something like that. now, it's different when you talk about secretary clinton making the decision to go ahead and end the primaries. that was about her supporting the nominee. it wasn't about a coalition to try to propel someone else forward. and that's a big difference. but it happens on both sides. we've all been part of the conversation. >> the two candidates themselves talking face to face. usually this is the providence

of pundits. >> and the act gets even higher on the wire when it's the two candidates. >> what everybody is missing is how close rick santorum came to actually almost being the nominee. he lost michigan by a few votes. go into ohio the big state, loses by 10,000 votes. he ended up winning 11 states and tying two others out of 30 when he had a one on one with mitt romney like missouri rick santorum not only got 55% of the vote but won every single county. >> josh, i just wonder, a guy like newt gingrich, does he feel that it's better to have -- because there was all this debate about who would be on the top of the ticket. does he feel it would be better to have president obama and joe biden in there today or vice president gingrich? looking back on it does he regret not having taken the second slot? >> i think that would be a tough question for him to answer. when we talked about this he wasn't really in the mood to second guess. i think he was, you know, proud of the campaign he ran, had hoped to emerge as a nominee, didn't, but might have another run in him.

>> why do you think he decided to tell this? that's what i want to know. you know, i saw your intrepid reporting. >> because josh is an excellent reporter. we have to leave it there. all righty. already planning your trip to new york for jimmy fallon's debut on the tonight show? not so fast. the mayor of sunny burbank is not so happy and he is putting up a fight. that's our pop lead and it's next. ♪ (train horn) vo: wherever our trains go, the economy comes to life. norfolk southern. one line, infinite possibilities.

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